John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

“I can’t believe this,” Royal says, looking at her, their faces even closer now, his eyes digging into her and she kisses him so maybe he will close them. He has his tongue up past hers, even that, they even put that up into you.

When she opens her eyes he is still looking.

“We won’t get stuck, will we?”

He smiles. He has a kind smile, never teasing. “You mean like dogs? That doesn’t happen to people.”

“You’re sure?”

He takes hold of her under and lifts all of her up a little and then eases her down, once, twice, three times. She must be wet or he must be wet because it slides. “If it could happen, there’s nobody I rather be stuck with than you.”

Who is doing this? she thinks as he somehow lifts her around so she is on her back and he is standing on the floor with it still in her, pointing down. She is not wearing Alma’s clothes anymore, not any of them, and when he pushes it deeper, if that is possible, it is her name he whispers hot into her ear.

“Jessie. Jessie Lunceford.”

He is as beautiful, in the lantern light, as she imagined, thinner even, muscles and bones standing out under his beautiful dark skin as he pushes in again and again and now each time she can’t help but squeeze it a little, like you do when you hold your water, like she won’t let him pull it back.

“Jessie,” he says, “I can’t hold back anymore,” and then he sighs deep and lays heavy on top of her, holding her tight.

He is the one shaking when he steps away and cleans himself off at the basin and then brings the lantern over to look at her closer.

“Sorry,” he says. “I been sick.”

“Something you can catch?”

She means it as a joke, but he doesn’t smile.

They don’t talk much after, Jessie telling him no, he shouldn’t write to Father, not yet. She has no idea what time it is. They lie under a rough blanket for a while, her cheek on his chest, listening to his heart beat, and she wishes she could sleep here, sleep and then wake to discover it is fine, everyone has agreed and they will be allowed to be this way forever. Jessie reaches up and touches his face, moved by the incredible fact that this is now something allowed between them, that for the moment she owns this right, at least while they are alone together. The books are no use now. Debased has no meaning for her, nor virtue or ruined , the familiar litany of traps for the young and foolish do not seem to apply. She cannot imagine, now, being Alma — how can she have been intimate with more than one man, how can the heart bear it?

“I should start home,” she says.

“You’re not walking,” says Royal. “Not alone.”

How can he know?

It was her very first dream of him — night, black night with a full moon and her arms around him and the horse’s body hot between her legs, no saddle, just the power of the muscles flowing. And waking out of breath.

“What does he call it?” she asks as Royal guides the beautiful horse over the railroad bridge.

“Nubia,” he says, eyes wary for whoever might be out this late. “I think he calls him Nubia.”

Alma has left the back door unlatched. Jessie finds her asleep in a hard chair in the kitchen. She frowns when she wakes, taking Jessie’s hand and looking her in the eye.

“Child, I’m sorry. Don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I promise you won’t get into any trouble.”

“Not me I’m worryin about.”

Jessie turns away from Alma’s eyes. “Did yours come?” Alma has let it slip about her soldier being in town.

“Not a sign of him.” Alma crosses to the range, rubbing her eyes, lays a pot on the heat. “You gonna drink some tea.”

Jessie sniffs the few inches of brown liquid in the pot. “What’s in it?”

Alma shrugs. “Squawroot, pennyroyal, little bit of rum.” She doesn’t add that she bought the herbs from Royal Scott’s mother, for her own use, a few months ago. “If you been up to what I think, you need to drink some.”

Jessie wrinkles her nose. “I don’t think so.”

“You got five, six weeks I can maybe help you, girl,” says Alma, pulling down Jessie’s favorite cup. “After that you in the hands of the Lord.”

Royal puts the horse back in its stall, rubs it down. Steam comes off the sides of the animal as he works, and he can feel his own muscles, feel the blood moving in him again, back with the living. Just maybe on his way to being somebody in the world instead of a little barefoot nigger whose daddy had a dog’s name. The horse is asleep and the sun just rising by the time he locks up and starts for the train station. He falls in with the early shift heading for the docks, many of them, the colored workers, asking about his uniform and reciting the highlights of the campaign. Ben Chesnutt is among them, and Moses Toney and Nat Washington who he knew from his days working at the creosote yard, and Vernel Underwood who played left field to his center on the Mutuals.

“Always knew you was gonna turn out o.k.,” says Vernel, winking. “No matter what anybody say.”

Henry Cooper is there, dozing on a bench, Junior a few feet away looking unshaven and exhausted.

“I feel like I’m running for governor,” says Junior as Royal sits.

“Your daddy has his way, you be doing that soon enough.”

“How’s your mother?”

“Fine. Living along.”

“Jubal?”

“Jubal got his horses, keeps him happy I guess.”

Coop wakes then, making a face. “Mouth feel like cotton,” he says. “And that water fountain is bust.” He looks at them, disoriented. “Yall made it.”

“With time to spare.”

Coop stretches, yawns. “Met a gal last night, like to wore me out. How bout you, Roy? You plant the flag somewheres?”

Royal knows he’s just ribbing, but with Junior looking at him, a little smile on his face, the question prompts a guilty sweat.

“Naw,” says Royal. “Just took care of some family bidness.”

Hod and the others walk toward Fort San Antonio Abad in double file, wading knee-deep in the river where it spreads and spills into the sea. To the left he can see Dewey’s ships steaming parallel to them, moving into position for the attack. It is cold still, having rained all night, and the men clutch their rifles with grim resolve. There has been shooting and shelling almost every night since they replaced the Filipinos in the positions facing the fort, but nothing much to shoot back at. Rumors of surrender without a fight have been running through the regiment, but here they are, marching straight into it. There is no cover as they climb up onto the sand and move forward toward the stone walls, only the Bay to the left and the flat beach ahead. A perfect killing ground.

“Fear not, gentlemen,” says Niles, or Lieutenant Manigault as he must now be called. “This is mere formality. Our worthy adversaries have their backs to the ocean and a hundred thousand overexcited niggers seething at the gates. They know we’ve come to preserve their posteriors.”

Niles hints that he is privy to the inside dope, that the men with stars on their shoulders confide in him, that today’s action will be a stroll in the park. But even he flinches at the first percussive boom of the cannon.

“It’s the Admiral, gentlemen,” he calls out, recovering. “He’ll soften them up for us.”

Smoke coughs out from the five-inch guns of the ships, broadside to the Spaniards, in a piston-like sequence. The return fire from the shore battery is sporadic and ineffectual. They are close enough now to see chunks of masonry flying from the seaward walls whenever Dewey’s guns find their mark.